LEVERKUSEN, Germany :Borussia Dortmund powered back from a goal down to crush hosts Bayer Leverkusen 4-2 in the Bundesliga on Sunday, keeping alive their chance of a top-four finish going into the final matchday next week.
Dortmund have now won six of their last seven league games to climb up from 11th to fifth and are just a point behind fourth-placed Freiburg.
The Ruhr valley club, last year’s Champions League finalists, have 54 points going into next week’s season finale, with the top four teams earning automatic qualification for next season’s Champions League.
Yet they found themselves a goal down in the 31st minute with Leverkusen’s Jeremie Frimpong giving the hosts a deserved lead in coach Xabi Alonso’s final home match.
The Spaniard announced on Friday that he will leave at the end of the season, having joined in October 2022 and led them to the domestic double last season without defeat while also reaching the Europa League final.
“We lived a lot of special moments and it was a mixed feeling in the last home game. We are thankful for what we achieved in the past three years,” Alonso told a press conference.
“I have changed a lot in these years. We had many experiences. Luckily most of them good ones, today maybe not but I will forget this one quickly,” he said. “What I lived here in Leverkusen has been very special.”
“We played a very good first half but keeper (Dortmund keeper Gregor) Kobel made saves. In the second half, we were not good. But football today for me was not the most important thing,” Alonso said.
A half-dozen saves by Kobel kept them in the game in the first half but after Leverkusen’s goal the visitors never looked back.
Dortmund levelled two minutes later with Julian Brandt slotting in from a Karim Adeyemi cutback.
The visitors scored again in the 43rd after winning possession in Leverkusen’s half and Julian Ryerson completing the move with a low finish from the right.
Leverkusen’s lethargic play saw them lose possession once more in the 73rd with Marcel Sabitzer feeding lightning-quick Adeyemi to make it 3-1.
Before the hosts had time to regroup they conceded another goal through Serhou Guirassy, who bagged his 20th league goal of the season in the 77th. Jonas Hofmann managed to score in stoppage time for Leverkusen.
Dortmund host relegated Holstein Kiel next week.
Third-placed Eintracht Frankfurt drew 2-2 with visitors St Pauli, missing the chance to nail down their Champions League spot ahead of the season finale. Eintracht are on 57, three ahead of Dortmund and two in front of Freiburg.
St Pauli are all but assured another year in the Bundesliga, which would mean Hamburg having two clubs in the top division next season after Hamburg SV’s promotion on Saturday.
Bayern Munich on Saturday celebrated the league title they had secured a week earlier, beating Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0.
